Merit Badge in Copyright Law?

21Oct06

When I first read about this in one of my many RSS feeds, I figured it was a hoax or it came from The Onion. I quickly moved on because after all, I have more important stuff to do than laugh…right? It wasn’t until I read a few more similar titles about a merit badge in copyright, that I started thinking, is this for real? It turns out it is!

Does the movie industry really think that piracy is what’s keeping us from going to the movies? Let’s see. The last time I went to an actual movie theater (about 3 years ago), it was approximately $10 a person just to get in. This didn’t include the tub o’ butter popcorn that will stop your heart and the gallon size soda with enough sugar in it to fuel a nuclear reactor. What did I get for my money? A floor sticky enough to keep me on it if they turned the movie theater upside down, a chair that looked like it used to belong to Archie Bunker, a screen that was slightly out of focus, a screen that had black marks in it that distracted from the movie, neighbors that insisted on talking all through the movie, a cellphone that apparently didn’t have an off button, a persistant cougher (I can empathize with this since I’m actually in the throes of a coughing spell), and no guarantee that I would actually like the movie. (note: I was actually going to go on, but I remember learning about run-on sentences in high school)…

All this and movie *star* salaries continue to rise. I’ve been on this older movie kick, Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, Citizen Cane. You know, when it was about the acting. It was those actors that deserved the mutlibazillion dollar salaries….Orson Welles, Bogart, Bacall.

Come to think of it, except for screen size, I can’t think of a compelling reason to actually go to a movie theater and it’s not because I pirate movies either. I actually can’t think of any movies that I would take the time to pirate because most aren’t really all that good….